The present invention relates to a lower vehicle-body structure of a vehicle, comprising right-and-left side sills extending in a vehicle longitudinal direction at both outward sides, in a vehicle width direction, of a vehicle body, right-and-left hinge pillars extending upward from respective front positions of the right-and-left side sills, right-and-left center pillars extending upward from respective middle positions, in the vehicle longitudinal direction, of the right-and-left side sills, a floor panel connected to the right-and-left side sills, and a floor tunnel protruding upward at a central portion of the floor panel.
A conventional lower vehicle-body structure of a vehicle which is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 2008-230417 or 2008-230460, for example, has been proposed in order to ensure the safety performance against a vehicle offset collision, or the one which is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-230417, for example, has been proposed in order to ensure the safety performance against a vehicle side collision.
In these days, while it has been desired to improve the safety performances against the vehicle frontal or side collisions, it is desired to further improve the safety performance against the small overlap collision (a so-called SOL collision), in particular.
The above-described patent documents, however, disclose no concrete countermeasures against this small overlap collision, and refer to no specific problem (necessity) about the further improvement of the safety performance against the small overlap collision.